The pegging went without any real glitches, we would have liked to have done a recce in the daylight but neither of us had the time so it was a headlamp and torch job. The canal looked good, quite clear, a little cat ice and it was flowing towards Marlborough so thats always a good start.
Once we had finished walking up and down the canal it was time to set up the draw in the Kings Arms pub in the village, they had very kindly opened early for us all to get a breakfast and have somewhere warm to set up and do the draw.
Once the festivities had been taken care of I managed to pluck peg B4 out of the bucket of doom, this peg was literally the middle peg of the match, well between B4 and B5 due to the numbers, B section was the tightest pegged section and to be fair as I was walking down the towpath I was already planning my excuses for the day.
As you can see from the picture I had some straggly reeds on the far bank and that was about it, I had walked past boats, overhanging trees all sorts of nice looking features so more excuses were logged for later. I got to my peg and started to set my box up as I wanted to try and get all the disturbance of nets, plumbing and thumping up and down the bank out of the way as soon as possible so that I could leave the swim quiet for a while before the all in, this I hoped would allow me to get a run on the guys around me and maybe claw back some points in what I was classing as a damage limitation exercise for the day. As i placed my box down I found the Ice that was running halfway across the canal so clearing a wide channel in that to fish was my first job.
once that was done it was placing the keepnet and tying it across the front of my box so that it would not move in any boat wakes, then I set my rigs up.
The plan was simple, a short bread line that I would push left or right if I needed plumbed up in the deepest part due to the clarity, then a caster line across against the right hand side of the reeds and a worm line across this time against the reeds to the left. To be fair I wasn't really fancying the reeds as it was only 2 feet deep against them, but they were my only feature so they were in the plan.
Starter rigs plumbed I decided to check that the bread rig was shotted correctly as i had only tied it the night before from memory, it needed a couple of number 13's but as I was sorting the trimming shot I was getting knocks on the rig on what was going to be my bread line, I thought that as long as I didn't do anything stupid I could be alright today. I decided to have a cup of coffee and as I placed the flask down behind me it slipped from my hand making an almighty thud on the frozen ground, well so much for the element of surprise I thought. I managed a quick walk back to the car to get a towel and then I was ready for the all in, my opening gambit was a thumbnail sized ball of liquidised bread that had been run through a 2mm riddle, then mixed with a little hemp and hemp water. That was fed on the short line at top kit plus 3 in 4 ft of water, then I cupped 20 grains of hemp and 10 caster onto my caster line at 11.5m. Now it was crunch time.
I slipped a 5mm punch onto the hook and shipped the rig out onto the short line only for the float to remain motionless, 1 minute, 2 minutes another piece of bread was put on the hook and finally an indication as I missed a very finicky bite. I was starting to flap a little by now as the guy to my right had had 2 fish from the far bank, Craig to my left was catching straight away and all I could see up and down the section was people swinging and netting fish.... EEEK.
I had a quick word with myself and started to concentrate on how I was lowering the bait over the spot, I knew it was going to be hard but this was ridiculous, it took a few minutes but after reducing the hookbait to 4mm, shallowing up by an inch and holding the rig with the float out of the water for a count of 8 before lowering the whole lot down usually saw the float continue down the hole and a roach hang it self on the end. It started to get good and I was catching a fish a put in when disaster, a boat was slowly chugging along straight down the track, as soon as it passed I went straight back over the top more in hope than expectancy and unfortunately the damage had been done as the float caught some weed straight away.
I decided to try and regroup the fish, so it was time to start the across worm line, 4 dendrabenas were finely chopped and 10 casters added to them in the cup as an initial feed for the line, I then cupped a small hard ball of licky on the short line and then went straight over the top of it. Not alot happened, I had a couple of micro roach so after 10 minutes I decided to have a look on the long line, I was only going to give it a count of about 100 so I got very exited when it started bobbing about after 40 seconds, the strike saw a small perch head about 20m down the canal, I may have been a little excited. That was the end of the action on the long line but as I returned to the short line the roach had returned and by feeding small nuggets of bread when the stamp of the roach became see through I was able to keep the slightly larger fish coming.
This was largely the pattern for the day, I started a new track bread line at about halfway through the match and this gave me another 15-20 small roach when the first line had dried up completely, my worm line got switched to 13m down the canal in the track to my left, this got started with 90 minutes to go and by careful feeding I had 2 perch for 12oz in the last 20 minutes from it. I stopped feeding the caster line and started a bread line against the reeds and this provided a steady run of small roach for around an hour and finally with 30 minutes to go I fed a small hard ball of licky on my original short bread line and in the last 15 minutes I had 8 roach off it that were all bigger than the micro roach I was catching across.
It didn't take me long to pack up and there were tales of woe up and down the canal, the end pegs both seemed to have done well and Jase on B8 was actually fishing against me in the knockout so it was interesting to see ho he had done. So, Jase had 2.250Kg, Rocky next to him had 2.050KG I knew it was going to be close as I wasnt sure how many roach I had managed but after a few lower weights it was my turn. 2.800Kg then Mike on the other end peg weighed 2.300Kg I think so I had managed to win the section, from the middle, to say I was happy was an understatement and to be fair I am still a little shocked, but my perch helped no end.
We all met up back at the pub and I managed to figure out that I had also come first in the match, happy days. And that's it really Blog done, it was a nice day although a little chilly and the 2 boats we saw knocked the fishing back for everyone but that's winter fishing on the canal.
What would I do differently?
Not alot really, maybe lighter elastic for the eyes fishing across and a smaller designated bread rig for that line rather than bodging my caster rig.
Not alot really, maybe lighter elastic for the eyes fishing across and a smaller designated bread rig for that line rather than bodging my caster rig.
Bread short:
Elastic: 5 slip
Line: 0.11mm to 0.08mm
Hook: 20 PR311
Float: 0.6g DS14H
Worm across:
Elastic: White Hydro
Line: 0.17mm to 0.11mm
Hook: 16 B560
Float: 4X12 Dibber
Worm Track:
Elastic: Double 5 but swapped to white hydro later
Line: 0.17mm to 0.11mm
Hook: 16 B560
Float: 0.3g Frenzee float
Caster and Bread Across:
Elastic: Double No. 2 slip
Line: 0.11mm to 0.08mm
Hook: 20 Colmic B957
Float: 0.2 AS3
